Please Tell Me They Are Kidding
Monday, November 13th, 2006I don’t believe everything I read in the press… but this made me mad.
Almost 200 drug-addicted prisoners are to receive thousands of pounds in compensation after suing over going “cold turkey” in jails. Inmates claim the policy of stopping them taking drugs in prison amounted to “torture”.
The 198 inmates demanded compensation from the Home Office saying the policy was a breach of their human rights.
The case was due to be heard in The High Court today but reports in the Daily Mail claim the Home Office will settle out of court.
Each prisoner can now expect thousands in compensation and the legal bill could rise to millions, it is claimed.
When addicted inmates arrive in prisons they are encouraged to take part in a treatment programme in which they take substitute drugs such as methadone.
The plan is to reduce the problems of going “cold turkey” and the treatment is gradually reduced.
Legal sources claim prison officials did not follow guidelines properly with some inmates being forced to take part in programmes without consent.
Shadow home secretary David Davis told the Daily Mail: “Presumably the Government does not want to be embarrassed by losing such a case under its own human rights legislation.”
Where will it end? How can the “policy of stopping them taking drugs in prison” amount to torture?! What annoys me even more is that the Government have caved in and paid out without going through the court process as a face saving exercise in case they lose. I’m sick to death of the Government not taking a firm stand on issues like this. Everyone has gone too soft. Nobody has ever died of going cold turkey as our Force Medical Examiner likes to say to prisoners in our cells who start requesting drugs from him to help them “get through the night”. He gives them a paracetamol and then effectively tells them to “do one”. It’ll be us getting sued next.